


Summer

by Monochromely



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Vampire AU, and I absorbed those sparkly brooding vampires through osmosis, but for the most part, eventually, if you sense the twilight vibes, shout holla bc a twilight marathon has been playing on tv all weekend, there'll be a lot of twilight ingrained in the DNA of these vamps, well - not the sparkly part because it's stupid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 19:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12306036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monochromely/pseuds/Monochromely
Summary: After the death of the youngest member in the Rostov family, Natasha and Sonya accept an invitation to stay with Natasha's godmother for while as a means of escaping the oppressive atmosphere that now surrounds their once happy home. Marya owns a bar in a sleepy, little town called Moscow, and it is in Moscow where Natasha finds more than she bargained for in terms of an entertaining summer. From the outside, Moscow looks pretty ordinary—scruffy and cozy, like an old dressing gown—but sometimes, anonymity is simply a disguise for something much darker than humans can conceive, something dangerous and supernatural. Intoxicating.But that's just sometimes.Vampire AU. Initially Andrei/Natasha.





	1. Moscow

**Author's Note:**

> The other day, I was suddenly stricken with the desire to write a _Great Comet_ vampire AU, so here I am, lol.

“Natalie?” Dad’s creased eyes peer at her from the rearview mirror. There are thick lines underscoring them that were certainly never there before. Ugly capillaries bulge at their edges, threatening to burst into crimson supernovas. He looks old; for the first time, she realizes that he _is_ old. It took a little while for time to catch up with him, couldn’t quite apprehend him in all of his childish joy, but when it found its first opportunity, it latched on and didn’t let go, sinking its teeth into her father and bleeding him for scraps. His very voice is shriveled; his movements are slow and heavy. “You okay, honey?”

“Yes,” she lies, reluctantly tugging her head away from the window. She tries to muster up a smile for his benefit, but it falls flat in the tired planes of her face, sagging to one side like a deflated tire. She’s not really old, not as he is, but she feels like it—God, she feels ancient. “Just ready to get there.”

“I’m sure you are,” he agrees sympathetically. His balding head bobs in time with his words. Natasha is suddenly stricken with the image of a puppet, moving mechanically, moving because it’s made to move by a human jerking at the strings. _Dance, little marionette, dance, dance until I’m tired of you, and I throw your empty, wooden body to the floor_. A thrill of revulsion shudders through her at the thought; she hugs her arms a little closer to her body. “Not to worry, though. We’ll be there soon. City limit’s only about a mile away. Maybe Marya will even have some of her famous tea waiting for us.”

“I always did love her tea.” Natasha doesn’t really remember her godmother’s tea.

“The best in the continental U.S.” She doubts her father really remembers her tea either; it’s just something you say, something to pass the time. The puppet who once used to be called Ilya Rostov suddenly shifts his focus, glances to his right as the green and brown blurs of trees race them on either side of the empty road. The sky outside is the kind of a steel gray that cuts. “And how about you, Sonya? How are you holding up, sweetheart?”

Sonya quickly looks up from her phone, a little startled at being addressed. She had been texting Nikolai; Natasha can tell by the way a hint of red is clambering up her pale cheeks like tendrils of new ivy slowly slinking into the crevices of a wall, softly, almost imperceptibly. She thinks that’s how it all began between the two of them, too—softly, almost imperceptibly.

“I’m fine, sir.” The screen of the phone dips Natasha’s way for the briefest second, a quick slip of nervousness. The white text bubble says _i love you_. It bobs away once more. “I’m glad that we’ll be there soon.”

“Good answer, my girl.” Dad nods approvingly, mechanically, and she fancies that she can see the strings protruding out of his neck and shoulders. “Good answer. This vacation is going to really be good for the two of you—I’m sure of it. It’ll be good to get away from…”

He stops short, and everyone is grateful for it. Natasha wipes a traitorous tear from her eye and swallows thickly; Sonya, pale and pinched, touches her hand, her tiny fingers soothingly tracing the inclines of her knuckles. 

 _There, there,_ her large brown eyes seem to say, gripping in their intensity. _It’s okay._

Dad’s fingers tighten around the steering wheel.

They’re all trying to push away the image of a little boy with dimples, tiny Petya with his gap-toothed smile and cherubic laugh, his bouncy black curls, his warmth. Tiny Petya rotting in a tiny coffin, his chubby face arranged in a serene smile in some sick, last joke. The minivan begins its trek up a final hill, spluttering some with the effort; the faded sign on the left tells them that Moscow is awaiting them on the other side of it.

 From the crest of the hill onwards, they dip down into the small Russian town clandestinely tucked away in the forested fringes of New York. Except that it’s not really all that clandestine—not anymore, at least. It’s faded like an old photograph, all gray and scratched up. Scruffy and cozy, Marya had described it to be, like a favorite pair of pajamas. Natasha, taking in the town for the first time through the tinted window, can easily see the scruffy part, but the coziness hasn’t quite sunk in yet.

On the main street, there are a couple of stores, a few restaurants, and a seedy looking McDonald’s. A little further down, there’s a post office, a town hall, and a mini park where the swings have long rusted in the elements. The architecture admittedly has a bit of charm, sings of Russian designs from old, but upkeep has been minimal, all chipped paint and crumbling brick. The gray sky seems to have swallowed the town whole for even the trees seem to be drained of their color. Maybe Marya’s favorite pajamas have accidentally been bleached from time to time.

She and Sonya share a measured glance, which verbalized, would have essentially been the all-encompassing monosyllable _eh_.

“The town’s seen better days,” Dad says, a little sheepishly, a little defensively (he’d grown up here, a third generation immigrant and fiercely proud of it), “but it’s limping on the best it can.” The sentiment resonates with Natasha. She plays around with the words in her head, sighs a little when she arranges them just perfectly.

_I’m limping on the best I can, too._

 “It’s nice, Uncle Ilya,” Sonya tells him kindly, a gentle smile on her lips. “Quaint.”

“I’m sure we’ll love it here,” Natasha adds, doing her best, limping on. Her eyes catch on a heavily graffitied alley where the largest… masterpiece is a crudely drawn phallus. “ _Really_.”

Again, the two girls lock eyes, teasing now. _Eh._

At the first intersection in a town that can’t have too many intersections (Natasha infers rather than knows), Ilya turns left, guiding the tottering minivan down a street that seems to be more of a construction project than an _actual_ , productive street. Scaffolding and canvases have completely obstructed many of the buildings from view; a common layer of dust has settled over the edifices-in-progress. It’s a Sunday, so there aren’t workers out to complete this outward appearance of hard assembly.

“Ah, the first fruits of the council’s restoration bill,” Dad supplies, continuing to prove impressively knowledgeable about the town he had long been removed from. It’s strangely endearing. “I see it’s coming along well.” And then, with a quick dip of the steering wheel, they suddenly pull over, parallel parking in front of one of the only buildings that isn’t interrupted by signs of construction. Natasha’s eyes are immediately drawn to its neon sign, where a long, red dragon curls protectively around an electric blue name, its head resting lazily on the first word.

The Dragon’s Den.

Marya Dmitrievna’s bar.

And coffee shop, Natasha is quickly reminded, glancing wryly at the chalked in words on the window. _We sell coffee, too, if that’s your thing._

The storefront is elegant, composed of a bright reddish wood that seems to gleam slightly even in the general dreariness and droopiness which is Moscow; bold red awnings fan out over the main entrance and windows. An olive green apartment space with burgundy accents is perched on top of the bar, proudly unfaded, immaculate in every structural way.

Natasha can’t help but grin appreciatively; she admits that this _is_ kind of cozy, and the fact that the bar is the nicest looking place on the cramped block really adds to its charm. 

Sonya raises an eyebrow in her direction, and she returns it. 

 _Hm_ , they are both thinking, decidedly more interested than before.

“C’mon girls—best not to keep the Dragon Lady waiting any longer.” Her father had already been halfway out of the door, but now he pauses, looks back at both of them with something like a smile caught between parentheses. It’d been awhile since she had seen him smile; the parentheses are newer additions. “Best not to call her that, though, if you value your lives.”

 As if on cue, a bell tinkles, an opened door quickly falls to a close, and standing in the shadowy main entrance of the Dragon Den is the Dragon Lady herself, reared tall above the world in her impossibly high heels, painted lips pressed into a thin, exacting line. Natasha and Sonya tumble out of the minivan hurriedly, almost tripping over one another in their haste; they don’t know her very well, have only seen her a handful of times in their lifetimes, but from what they can remember, and from what they can tell by her openly haughty appearance now, Marya Dmitrievna is not the kind of woman who likes to be kept waiting.

"Ilya Rostov,” she all but booms, her features resolute, inflexible in their sternness. For a fraction of a moment, Natasha wonders if her father had been mistaken about Marya’s invitation to them; the look on her godmother’s face is hardly what one would expect out of a welcoming hostess. “Still looking as hairy as monkey’s backside, eh?”

_Um, rude._

She looks to her father and immediately expects him to bend; that’s what he always does in the face of more powerful people anyway, but to Natasha’s mounting surprise, Ilya meets Marya’s gaze levelly, squares his shoulders as he prepares to speak.

“Ah, Marya Dmitrievna,” he replies evenly, almost icily, “still three decibels more vulgar than any saint on this street.”

Silence, charged and thick, and then suddenly, the two are collapsed together in a tight embrace, Marya’s strikingly red head thrown back in a bark-like laugh. 

“It’s good to see you, you old fool! It’s been too long!” Still holding him, she kisses him on both cheeks as he glows warmly in return. 

Natasha blinks once, feeling a little more than blindsided by this whole turn of events.

“I know, I know,” Ilya says, somberly now, heavily, stepping back from his old friend. His face suddenly caves in on itself, regains some of the age she had only just noticed before. “I would have brought the family to visit sooner, but things… you know… happened.”

It’s the lightest way of putting it.

Marya Dmitrievna’s face softens, and she places a well-manicured hand on his shoulder, the tips of her red fingers curling tightly into his shirt.

“It wasn’t your fault, Ilya.” Her voice is surprisingly tender as she says it, and maybe because it’s so surprising or maybe because it’s so tender, Ilya breaks just a little. A single, noiseless sob racks his body, and Natasha’s heart seizes in her chest to watch. She extends a hand to place on her father’s back but thinks better of it, closes her outstretched fist and lets it drop into Sonya’s hand, finds comfort in her cousin’s touch. The dreaded Dragon Lady, who doesn’t very much look like a dragon lady at all in this vulnerable moment, has the situation under control. “You know that, right?”

“I could have—”

She cuts him off quickly but not unkindly, squeezes his shoulder all the more tightly. “Nonsense. There is nothing you could have done, and obsessing over hypotheticals will do you nothing but harm.”

It’s sound advice, good advice—Marya seems to think so, at least, because now she focuses her full attention on Natasha and Sonya for the first time, white teeth bared in a smile, her former softness exchanged for an impression of amazing energy. She grabs both girls with astonishing speed and pulls them into a bone-crushing hug; Natasha, pressed against the lapel of her godmother’s red jacket, gets a strong whiff of her perfume, almost choking on it.

At least she’s not Sonya, though; Sonya got boob.

“Natasha!” Marya releases them with a relish, leaving them staggering to regain their balances. Natasha manages a smile and nearly means it as she looks into her godmother’s eyes, feels the warmth and affection flooding out of them. “You’ve grown so much since the last time I’ve seen you. A little peckish, a little pale, but I’ll fix you up in no time.”

She’s not exactly sure that’s a compliment, but she says, “Thank you, Marya” anyway.

“Call me, Aunty, dear girl. My dear mother—God rest her soul—called me Marya… and hello, Sofia.” Her pointed use of Sonya’s Christian name as opposed to her informal name is probably the most apt summation of Marya’s complex mixture of slight scorn and affection that has long determined her attitude towards Sonya. Sonya, though, ever a pillar of good and righteous behavior, simply takes it in stride and bows her head politely, offers a shy smile and a murmured hello.

And with the introductions all said and done, Marya whirls them into the bar comma coffee shop, pressing them to sit in a cozy corner booth while she has her employees tend to their things in the car (which can hardly be ethical but the chosen employees hasten to follow orders anyway), leaving Natasha time to observe her new surroundings—her new home, really. The apartment space on top of the Dragon Den belongs to Marya as well, and it’s up there where Natasha and Sonya will be sharing a room together with the purpose of rehabilitating from the most recent traumatic events in their lives.

 _Well_ , Natasha thinks wryly, _that’s what the adults are hoping for anyway._

It’s not that they’re particularly all that worried about Sonya either. Sonya is fine; Sonya has always been skilled at compartmentalizing the tragedies in her life. It’s Natasha who has lost pound after pound, looking more emaciated by the day. It’s Natasha whose smooth, dark skin has acquired an ashy pallor, a biting affront to healthiness. It’s Natasha, too, who can’t sleep at night, who roves the shadowy halls of the house after midnight and passes out in random places when her body just can’t take the strain anymore. It’s Natasha whom everyone is worried about. They coddle her; they bend over backwards to ensure her wellbeing.

 _I’m limping on,_ she thinks, staring vaguely at the covered lamp above her, watching the dust motes swirl through the golden air, observing the patterns on the shade. She tunes in to the background noise, too, to Marya barking instructions and the jumbled cacophony rising from the patrons of the bar. It’s surprisingly busy for a Sunday afternoon. There must be a big game going on tonight. _I’m doing the best I can, and sometimes, my best is this. Sometimes, it’s staring at golden lightbulbs and listening to the world going on around me. Sometimes, it’s simply existing and breathing and carrying on—step after step._

No one can fault her for that.

They shouldn’t anyway.

After she’s satisfied about the states of girls’ things, Marya rejoins them at the table, a tray in her hands, a samovar (complete with a teapot on top) and a couple of cups balanced perfectly on said tray. Dad had told her that Marya really leans into old Russian traditions when she can, is adamant about not only holding on to her roots but cultivating them, too, keeping them alive for the younger generation to come.

“Listen, Ilya, now don’t you worry about these young ones,” she says matter-of-factly, pouring the tea. Natasha watches interestedly as the perfumed steam curls upwards from the cups, murmurs a quick thank you when Marya hands her the first one. “I’ll pet them a bit, scold them a bit, and I’ll put them to work here in the Den. They’ll be fine, more than _fine_ , really. Plus, there are plenty of kids their age around here for them to scamper around with. I’d love for them to meet sweet Masha.” 

“Are you sure it’s no trouble?” Ilya asks, his brow furrowed. He’s staring at Natasha, regarding her with a kind of concern that simply makes her insides want to melt in the ground. Her tea hasn’t quite cooled to a drinkable temperature yet, so she traces her pinky finger around its porcelain edge to avoid meeting his eye.

“I’m sure,” Marya replies, and that surprising tenderness is there again. It’s like a warm caress, the way her words can wrap around you; an image of a dragon flashes through Natasha’s mind eye—a huge, fierce, but nonetheless loving dragon, one from one of the rarer fairytales where the ferocious beast protects the princess rather than imprisons it. “I’ll take care of them. I’ll keep them safe.”

She extends a large hand to touch the cheek of her goddaughter, her favorite, Natasha, and more genuinely than before, Natasha offers a smile in return, reveling in what it means to be loved by Marya Dmitrievna.

P.S. Her father hadn’t lied.

Natasha takes a sip of her drink, enjoying the way the spiced tea saturates her throat with its heat and flavor. Its warmth spreads through her entire body in an instant.

Best tea in the continental U.S.


	2. Andrei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Andrei. He's v. pretty, but he kinda looks like he's constipated all the time.

Dad got back on the road shortly after tea. _It’s a long drive back to Lido Beach_ , he said with an apologetic smile. _Can’t keep your mother waiting any longer._ There was a certain helplessness in his shoulders, a deadened look in his eye. He kissed Sonya’s cheek and then Natasha’s, lingered for just a moment longer to brush a stray strand of hair back from his daughter’s forehead, and then he was gone. Natasha watched from the window as the minivan hobbled back onto the road and disappeared. She stood there for sometime still and contemplated her father’s foreseeable future, what awaited him beyond Moscow’s dreary horizon. 

She wasn’t particularly imaginative about _it_ —just intuitive—and she saw it all very clearly. He would get out of his car and unfold into the sunny day like a scruffy accordion, all scuffed and scratched up; the salty sea breeze would tousle his graying hair, and he would sigh a little before walking up the drive to their huge house on the water. Maybe he would imagine the days where the little jaunt to the doorstep would end in him being surrounded by his family. Maybe the reality had already been beaten into his brow while he was alone in the minivan; when he twisted the brass knob to the front door, maybe he already knew that the big house on the water was empty, empty, empty. He’d just dropped two of his kids in the middle of nowhere. Nik was in the army. Vera had run off with her fiancé after the funeral. Petya was…

There was a cemented over pool in the backyard.

It used to not be cemented.

Times changed.

Natasha, as she stared out at the empty Moscow street, saw how her father would hang his keys on the rack next to the door before roaming the house in search of his wife. He wouldn’t have to look far because she’d be in the living room, fast asleep in the armchair that faced the sliding door that faced the cemented pool. He would kiss her forehead, softly, tenderly. She wouldn’t stir; she slept a lot these days.

Now, Natasha stands naked in Marya Dmitrievna’s guest bathroom, waiting for the shower to heat up, impassively regarding herself in the mirror as she waits. The linoleum tile is cold beneath her feet; air from the vent on the wall slices her skin in eddies like knife cuts, but she takes it. She feels like she deserves it. Her head nods in the mirror to confirm the sensation.

She knows she deserves it.

Her mother is nearly comatose nowadays, and her father is barely treading water, and the big house of her childhood might as well be their shared tomb… and she, _their loving daughter_ , jumped ship at the first opportunity.

But that’s not the problem.

Not really.

The problem is that for however much guilt she may feel at her desertion, Natasha feels so much more relief. It climbs up her throat and threatens to choke her. It exhilarates her veins. For the first time in awhile, she feels, she _is_ vital.

 _And here_ , she thinks traitorously, _there isn’t a baby blue room full of untouched toys._

 _And here,_ she exhales softly, _there isn’t a cement pool in the backyard._

So, while the water is heating up, she simply stands in the middle of the bathroom and takes the cold. It’s the least she can do. In the mirror, a pair of dark eyes blink in agreement.

She only gets in the shower after a few more minutes of this bare bones ritual; the hissing water breaks over her head like a waterfall, and she lets the blistering heat seep into her weary bones, scorching them clean.

Summer is stretched before her, an endless wealth of possibilities _now_ where it hadn’t been before, and yet—she pauses halfway in the middle of dragging shampoo through her hair—she can’t help but wonder if her relief is a little premature.

Yeah, Marya is nice, and her bar is cozy, but is that really something you can live on?

She digs into the suds in her hair more violently than before, trying to scrub away that nasty, little thought with them.

—

Sonya is asleep when Natasha finally takes leave of the bathroom, easing quietly, carefully into the guest bedroom that’s adjoined to it by an exceptionally creaky door. Her cousin had showered first, and soon afterwards, had curled up on the side of the bed away from the window, her drying auburn tresses spilling messily on the pillow. She’s snoring slightly, endearingly. The quilt is tucked high around her face, almost obscuring her eyes and their long, dancing lashes. It’s a tempting sight, and Marya _had_ suggested that they both take naps before dinner, but in all truthfulness, the shower had done more invigorating than soothing, so she sends a smile in Sonya’s direction and pulls on leggings and a cropped sweatshirt, twists her hair into a loose bun. 

There’ll be time for sleep later. 

She snatches up her phone from the bedside table and uses the other (and equally noisy) door in the guest bedroom to slip into the dark hallway, now on the hunt for her shoes—which she’s pretty sure she left in Marya’s living room. Her bare toes sink luxuriously into the plush carpet, and Natasha takes advantage of this absorption factor to skip down the corridor, enjoying more so the way the muted footfalls _feel_ rather than how they sound. She couldn’t describe it if she had to, but the _woolliness_ sort of rises up in her, envelops her with both a warmth and a lightness each time her foot brushes the floor. 

 _You’re very sensitive to the world, my little starchild,_ her father once told her. _It’s a rare gift._ Vitality like an electric pulse thrums through her veins. She hums a little and thinks happily of all the ways she’ll punish herself for this feeling later.

Her sandals are next to the coffee table; Natasha slips them on quickly before heading over to the door that leads downstairs into the Dragon Den. A cursory glance at her phone tells her that it’s almost five, nearly time for the bar’s Happy Hour. Maybe she’ll run into someone interesting. She twists the knob and bounds down the dimly lit staircase, conquering two steps at a time. Maybe she’ll even get to see a drunken brawl. At the bottom step, which opens directly into the bar, she pauses and inhales the distinct aroma of pastries baking in the kitchen, the sweetness of sugary delights, the richness of rising dough. Or maybe she’ll just talk to Marya for a little while, get to know her godmother better. For all of her personality—her loudness, her boldness, her charm—she had mostly been a passive presence in Natasha’s life, only flitting by for birthdays and the occasional holiday. 

Natasha lurches off the final step and into the heart of the Den but has little luck when she scans around for the distinctive red hair of her godmother.

 _Must be in the kitchen_ , she surmises with a shrug.

So she opts to take a seat at the long bar instead, propping her head up on her elbow, studying the colorful bottles lined up on the brightly lit back wall as an absentminded means of entertainment. It isn’t long before one of the bartenders comes up to her, grinning jovially, stretching the freckles across his cheeks.

He’s a cute guy, can’t be that much older than her if she had to guess. Untidy brown hair, a crooked smile that ends in dimples. On the shorter side with a somewhat stocky build. Natasha sits up a little straighter in her chair, returns his smile tentatively, fully aware that the way he’s looking at her says that _he_ finds her cute as well. She glances (as surreptitiously as possible) at the lopsided name tag on his apron, squints to make sure she’s reading it correctly in the dim light.

“Hey there, stranger,” Boris says, all boyish charm, resting his elbows on the bar. She can’t help but notice that his arms are toned under his shirtsleeves. “Can I get you anything?”

“You call me that as though it’s uncommon to be a stranger around here,” Natasha observes slyly. “Hot chocolate, please.”

“Spot on,” he nods, reaching under the counter and resurfacing with a mug. “It’s not Moscow unless you know everybody and their cousins—even the twice removed ones… and let’s just say that I’d be sure to recognize a pretty face like yours.”

He winks and turns his back to her for a couple of moments to prepare her cocoa, mercifully giving Natasha enough time to stifle an ungracious snort. This guy isn’t exactly subtle, is he? Nevertheless, by the time he returns, gently pushing the steaming mug towards her, she has arranged her face into something she imagines to be irresistible. A little thrill of satisfaction floods through her when she notices that his Adam’s apple is bobbing. Flirting has been unerringly fun for Natasha ever since she learned that she’s pretty good at it.

“You’re too kind,” she laughs. “But you’re right—I _am_ a stranger, except I guess I won’t be for much longer. Your employer’s my godmother. My cousin and I are staying with her for the summer.”

Boris’s russet eyes widen with realization, and he suddenly smacks the bar with a loud chuckle; Natasha’s hot chocolate jumps a little in its cup. 

“Oh, God, so _you’re_ the reason I’m probably going to have a premature hernia! Marya made me lug up one of your suitcases earlier, and I swear I thought I was never gonna make it up those stairs.” Natasha giggles, enjoying his little outburst. “I mean, seriously, girl, what do you have in that thing?”

Not particularly offended, she waves her hand airily, smiles coyly at him. “Clothes, shoes, emotional baggage—you know, those sorts of things. The essentials.”

“Well, your emotional baggage almost killed me.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Nah,” Boris shakes his head, eyes twinkling. “It’s all good. I’m glad you and your cuz finally made it. Marya hasn’t shut up about you guys since she first realized you were coming. Heck, yesterday, she made us scrub the whole bar from top to bottom in preparation for your arrival.”

“Sorry,” she says again, sincerely this time, but the small remorse she feels for the cute bartender’s servitude pales in comparison to the rush of affection she feels for her godmother. Her eyes flicker around the room again—still no Marya. She takes a long sip of her hot chocolate, letting the creamy warmth slide down her throat.

“It’s cool,” he shrugs. “Marya treats us well. All bark and only a little bite.”

“I actually don’t find that surprising,” Natasha replies thoughtfully, remembering the gentle way she had handled her father. “I’m sure she’ll be the perfect hostess.”

“No doubt.”

They talk for a little while longer, eventually exchanging names for the first time since the conversation begun, as well as numbers. (“If you’d like,” he offers, running a sheepish hand across the back of his neck, “I could show you around town sometime, take you to the few and far between hotspots.”) They delve briefly into their personal lives, with the biggest two revelations being that Boris is an upcoming sophomore at the local community college, while Natasha, taking the bartender’s innocent curiosity about why she’s here for the summer as a cue, thankfully learns that Marya hasn’t talked about Petya to anyone. It had been hard enough being the girl with a dead brother at home.

“Just wanted to spend some time with Marya before starting college,” she tells him in-a-would-be-casual-voice. Boris, blissfully ignorant, doesn’t notice the change, instead opting to ask about her university of choice instead.

She’s just about to respond when the tiny bell over the door tinkles merrily, signaling an incoming customer. Boris looks up automatically, a reflexive greeting perched readily on his lips, before deflating just as quickly, a sudden hardness in his features that takes Natasha by surprise.

“Oh,” he rolls his eyes, “this prick.”

Yikes.

Forgetting to be discreet (or more accurately, not caring about discretion at all), Natasha swivels around on her stool to get a closer look at the person who singlehandedly inspired so much ire in the previously happy-go-lucky bartender, and when her eyes alight on _him_ for the first time, heart catching somewhere between her mouth and throat, she can’t help but think that he may very well be a prick, but that doesn’t stop him from being the most handsome prick she’s ever seen in her entire life.

He stands in the doorway, utterly, almost unnervingly still, looking, despite his slim frame, as though he is grafted to the floor beneath him by some force other than gravity. And maybe it’s some trick of the light, or maybe it’s just nature bending to this obviously angelic force, but the whole world around him seems to be lighter and less significant in comparison, distorted to his magnitude and solemnity. A statue in human form, carved from marble, utterly perfect.

 _Because he is perfect_ , she thinks, struggling to close her mouth. From his marble skin to his angular aquiline nose to the way his obviously muscled arms bulge beneath his carefully rolled shirtsleeves, there is nothing in his features that suggests flaw. His dark, wavy hair is neatly combed to the side. He’s wearing suspenders and wearing them _well_ , the straps pressing firmly into his rigid chest. And it’s ridiculous, but even the stubble on his chin seems to be mathematically proportional.

“Andrei Bolkonsky,” Boris supplies from behind her, the syllables sharp and bitter even as his volume is low. “He’s Councilman Bolkonsky’s son.

And it’s almost as though this devastatingly beautiful Andrei Bolkonsky can hear that he’s being spoken about because he suddenly looks in their direction, his golden eyes boring into hers with a coldness that nearly petrifies her.

Scratch that.

She _is_ petrified, unable to even blink as he advances their way, his movements concise, graceful. He finally adjusts his gaze, looking behind her, and Natasha lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

Boris is cute, but Andrei Bolkonsky could be a god.

“Hey, pretty boy,” Boris joshes when he gets close enough. It almost passes as friendly, the keyword being _almost_. “Can I get you anything?”

She shifts in her chair once again, this time working to make the movement seem a little more natural so that she can get an uninterrupted view of the newcomer’s face without coming off as, well, _besotted_. He’s wedged himself into the space between her seat and the empty one next to it, eyes trained only on Boris.

“Boris,” he returns, his voice low and smooth, utterly unperturbed by the bartender’s obvious disdain. “Is Marya here?”

“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen.” There is a quick pause as the bartender gives him an inquisitive once-over. This must be an unprecedented occasion. “I’ll go get her.” And so he slings a rag over his shoulder before stalking through the door behind him, leaving Natasha relatively alone with the councilman’s alluring son (give or take twenty other people in varying states of inebriation). This doesn’t seem to bother him, though, because he’s either studiously avoiding her unabashed gaze or studiously staring at the Lagavulin decanter directly opposite of him. She tries to occupy herself by taking another hearty swill of her drink, only to discover that she can’t exactly taste it anymore.

God, he’s hot.

“You’re new to Moscow,” he states flatly, calmly, still not looking at her. Had she not seen his lips move, she would have doubted that he had been the one speaking at all, much less addressing _her._ She startles violently, almost toppling off of her stool.

“Um, yeah.” Her voice is two decibels two high and bordering on delirium, a scathing mockery of the confident murmur she had used with Boris only minutes earlier. “Is it that obvious?”

Andrei nods once and is silent, his features unreadable, carved out of stone.

And maybe this is what Boris had been hinting at—this guy is as inhumanly aloof as he is handsome. Standoffish. But while Natasha is in his immediate vicinity, drawn into his maybe-existent, maybe-a-figure-of-her-hyperactive-imagination gravitational force, she can’t muster too much resentment at his abrupt treatment, so she fiddles with her mug instead, trying to keep from staring at him.

Luckily, Marya chooses this moment to burst through the kitchen door, a sullen Boris at her heels.

“Andrei!” She slaps her hands on the bar and smiles ferociously at him, all teeth. Natasha admires her godmother’s self control. She had been unable to get a mere sentence out at Andrei without squeaking; talking to him like a normal human being had been out of the question. (Granted, her fifty-year old godmother probably isn’t as boy crazy as Natasha.) “It’s good to see you, dear boy. How’s your father?

“About the same,” he says, and a shadow flits briefly across his face, resolving itself just as quickly. He offers a pinched smile. For the first time, Natasha notices that there are deep shadows under his eyes, bruising them, perhaps betraying sleepless nights. “I’m actually here on his behalf. He wanted to know if your answer remains the same.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Marya frowns, “but tell him yes. I’m not as easily cajoled as the rest of the pansies on this street.”

“He’s not going to like that.” It’s not a judgment coming from his lips, just a fact. Andrei’s features remain as cool and impassive as ever.

“I know, but he’ll live,” she chuckles, and Natasha thinks she can detect a little bit of melancholy in the vibrating notes. “Besides, it wouldn’t be fun for the old coot if I just bowed down now. You know, he loves the challenge more than he loves the victory.”

“Undoubtedly. Thanks anyway, Marya.” And with that, Andrei politely bows his head and takes his leave; as soon as the door shudders to a close behind his form, the atmosphere in the bar returns back to its usual, boisterous state. Natasha, for one, suddenly feels coherent again—if a little lightheaded.

“He’s a strange boy, that Andrei,” Marya murmurs, and a distant look clouds her godmother’s eyes as she says it, “but I can’t help feel a little sorry for him.”

“Why’s that, Aunty?” Natasha leans forward in her stool, closely watching the way Marya’s shoulders face and shoulders resign themselves to what can only be pity; her well-manicured fingers grip the edge of the bar.

“Well, this is confidential, so if either of you tell, _I’ll box your ears,_ ”—she glares at them threateningly and then softens, a crease between her eyebrows—“but the poor boy’s father was diagnosed with a brain tumor about a month back. They don’t think he’ll live to see September.”

Boris curses softly, obviously regretting his slight against Andrei earlier. “I didn’t know.”

“And yet,” she muses, a small smile edging its way on her lips, “I can’t help but admire the old fusspot’s gusto. Even on his deathbed, he still won’t stop battling me about this bar.”

With a last, emphatic shake of her head, Marya disappears into the kitchen once more, and Boris, mouthing that he’ll be back, moves to the other side of the bar to attend to a customer.

And Natasha?

Natasha looks into her half-drained cup and sees Andrei’s perfect face clearly for the first time, all of the pretensions that came from her girlish admiration gone, emptied from her person as quickly as they had came. She remembers the sleepless nights after the funeral and the harsh lines underscoring Andrei Bolkonsky’s eyes and sees _him_ , really sees him, clearly indeed.

And because she sees him, she pushes him to the back of her mind—the very image of him, the staggering impression he had made—and recalls flirting with Boris instead.

Because she doesn't know Boris.

(Even if she does know his type.)

She takes a deep breath and steels herself to say _yes_ to whatever invitation Boris will assuredly throw her way because she knows what it’s like to be the girl with the dead brother.

All of the staring gets old after awhile.

The whispers and the tight embraces and the murmured condolences, too.

 _Andrei Bolkonsky._ She winks when Boris catches her eye from across the bar. He nearly drops the draft beer he's holding. _The boy with the dead father._


	3. El Sol's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> • Natasha and Boris go on a date to El Sol's. Some vampires come, too. Unfortunately, they don't all hook up.
> 
> • Andrei gets a tragic backstory™.
> 
> • Dolokhov tries to get lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Sorry for taking so long with this chapter. It was honestly giving me a really hard time. I wrangled with details _forever_.

On their first date, they went hiking, and their laughter reverberated through the trees. When she thought he wasn’t looking, she would peer at him from time to time—he was smiling as he was wont to do—and think that this wasn’t so bad. She could get used to this.

On their second date, he took her around town, showing her, as promised, the few and far between hotspots that Moscow had to offer. They picked up McFlurries from McDonald’s and conquered the beaten sidewalk, arms lightly brushing as they walked. He took her into antique shops and boutiques, and the shop owners would greet him affectionately because they’d watched him grow up and were proud of what he had become. Their eyes would widen in subtle recognition when he would introduce her as Marya’s Dmitrievna’s goddaughter. 

_You’ve grown up so much, little Natalya._

_Marya is always gushing about you._

They went by the park and sat in the rusted swings as the wind whistled through the trees. He gave her his jacket when he noticed that she was cold; she drew it close to her body, and its muskiness sent a different kind of shiver up her spine. Night fell, and stars cartwheeled across the sky. Their date drew to a hesitant close. They kissed under the streetlight in front of the bar. It was soft and sweet and the summer seemed wrapped around their embrace.

Natasha liked Boris, and Boris liked Natasha.

So it was easy for her to accept an offer to a third date.

He takes her to El Sol’s, the brightly colored Mexican restaurant off Main Street.

He invites a couple of friends, and they seem nice enough at first, but the friends drink tequila all night long, and Boris drinks, too.

They drink and drink and drink.

And they drink some more.

And they get drunk, and they sing drunken karaoke with sombreros hanging precariously off of their drunken heads.

And Boris, his brown eyes bright with inebriation, slaps her on the back (hard) and begs her to take a turn at the mic. He’s different after a couple of drinks, less charming.

Lesser in general.

And all of his friends—they’re frat guys, go figure—egg her on, their cacophonies roaring up the walls of the restaurant and crashing into her ears, filling her entire body with a kind of dread that trembles.

And she gets up there, not because she particularly wants to, but because three different sets of hands shove her towards the stage, and she doesn’t have the willpower to resist because she’s tired and confused and angry and… sad. 

The emcee asks her what she wants to sing. 

And then asks again because she hadn’t quite caught him the first time.

And she thinks on it for a moment, scrolls an invisible finger down an invisible selection of songs.

Whispers the chosen one into his ear.

Softly.

Sweetly.

Like a first kiss between new lovers. Under a streetlight. In front of a bar.

And she assumes the very pose she had used to stand in as a young girl when she went to the middle of the living room to sing.

And she takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with air.

And she sings.

—

When Andrei Bolkonsky finds himself outside of El Sol’s Mexican Restaurant on a star strewn Tuesday night, it isn’t because he’s craving a margarita on the rocks or an enchilada… or any other human food for that matter. 

Disgusting mush.

It’s because an hour ago, the headily sweet scent of an unwelcome newcomer had crossed his path while he was walking down Charlotte Street, inundating his senses, enraging them. It’s because he knows the scent well enough to know the threat implied by it. (You smell the smoke before you see the fire.) And it’s because Andrei is not one to hope for the best and to leave well enough alone, not when there is statistical risk and incalculable consequences, two abstractions he has never abided by in the pursuit of clear, judicious rationality.

Fedya Dolokhov, a statistical risk, an incalculable consequence, is apparently around, and he has hungry eyes and a hungry smile, and simply put, he’s _always_ hungry. 

A glut.

For food.

For sex.

For pleasure.

For _the_ pleasure of causing others pain.

Which, good and fine for him if that’s his prerogative, but it absolutely cannot be his prerogative in _Moscow_. Missing humans mean something in a town where the population falls just short of 4,000, and Andrei’s family has a cover to protect. So he’s been tracking the rogue vampire for the past hour, and his efforts have led him to the smudged double doors that admit humans into El Sol’s, a restaurant that looks like, and is, only a step up from a crackhouse.

When he peers in, sifting past the microscopic scratches and the fingerprints and all of the dust and dirt many subtle layers thick on the glass, he can see Dolokhov’s disheveled head poking out from one of the booths near the wall. He hasn’t groomed himself lately—that much Andrei can tell even from his vantage point. Scatterings of leaves have weaved themselves through his dark, tangled hair, and his clothes are rumpled, salted with dirt. The humans around him seem fairly oblivious, though. It’s not as though a little grime is uncommon in a place like El Sol’s. Plus, a quick canvassing of the interior tells Andrei that most of its inhabitants are wasted, unfortunately for them, advantageously for the ruthless vampire sitting very casually—his long legs are splayed and he’s draped his arms lazily over the table—in their midst.

So Andrei must act, but he must act carefully.

Though it would be _immensely_ gratifying to stalk in and drag the halfwit out by his ear, a physical confrontation would be unavoidable then; the humans, drunk as they may be, would probably notice if the councilman’s precocious son engaged in a supernatural brawl.

No, no, Andrei is smart, and he resolves to wait until Dolokhov takes his leave—he can’t stay here all night after all.

So he leans back and sucks in the night air.

It smells like dew, like pine, like the dimwit vampire inside.

The girl on stage begins to sing.

—

It’s not really the song that matters.

It’s a sad song by some sad pop star, and its sad lyrics don’t particularly say anything that hasn’t been said in hundreds of different ways, hundreds of different times before.

It’s what Natasha brings to the table in her voice that brings the world around her on its knees.

Right next to her.

She sings for and about and because of Petya Rostov, who had drowned in the swimming pool in the backyard. He was six, and he had just lost his first baby tooth; the Tooth Fairy had given him five dollars. He was six, and he is rotting in a cemetery now, his tiny bones arranged in a tuxedo that’s just a little too big for him in the sleeves. No one knows who left the sliding door unlocked. 

Natasha thinks it was her father. 

Her father think so, too. 

They both try not to think about it.

The chorus is powerful—the kind that builds itself up word by word, syllable by syllable—and it requires that her notes hang in the air like nooses. She holds the microphone in one hand and clutches her stomach with the other and lets her voice climb to the ceiling, each rise of the octave smoothly ascending the invisible rungs.

She sings because of the twenty-four Tylenol pills she cradled in her palm a few weeks after the funeral, closing and unclosing her fingers over them for a long time. They were sweating, or perhaps she was? 

The distinction is long blurred in her mind. 

Eventually, _resolutely_ , she downed one and then another but quickly stopped because Sonya was calling her name from somewhere down the hallway. She emptied the rest back into the bottle, replaced the bottle back in the medicine cabinet, and went to her cousin. They saw a movie that night.

It was a rom-com.

It had Ryan Gosling in it.

She squirmed in her seat.

She faked smiles and laughed laughs that were just a little too loud.

And strained against the guilt threatening to choke her.

The final verse is slow, allowing Natasha to roll the words around her tongue and think about swallowing them; she delivers them carefully, as though they are delicate. They are. She is.

She finds the table she had been sitting at with Boris, and like all of the rest of his dull friends, he is staring at her enraptured, his mouth half-hinged open, eyes wide, like tiny moons without craters, without substance.

She sings the last lines to him, to the sweet bartender with the crooked grin, and the lyrics stroke his cheek, softly, wistfully. She had liked him—she really had—but she doesn’t want _this_.

Nights like this one.

Unpredictability.

A boy who gets turned inside out by a couple of tequilas.

Not that he’s a precedent. 

Far from it.

She’s had boyfriends who drink before. 

She used to like to drink herself.

But she had been empty then and not in the way that she is empty now.

—

The girl on stage sings, and the frozen world he has inhabited, and hated, for two hundred and twelve long years melts into nothingness, and all he can see is the vision she creates with her voice. It’s the world as _she_ sees it, the world as he has never known it. The sky is alive with blue flames and golden lightning, and red rain scorches the ground, angrily building into a flood around him. But the water doesn’t burn for long; it resolves itself into numbness, and he lets himself be cradled by the feeling of no feeling as destruction, like a symphony, dances around him and above him, reverberating in his ears. The sheer beauty of it all swallows him whole. 

It is too much.

It is not enough.

He palms the glass door.

She places a hand on her stomach.

In 1805, he had stared at an entirely different sky. It was in Austerlitz, and the earth was glutted with the blood of humans in exchange for war. There was a distant buzzing in his head, and the bright red of his mortality streamed from the blow that killed him. He spent what precious time he had left transfixed by the lofty heavens arching above him. It wasn’t a pretty sky, but it was immense and boundless; its unplumbable depths, hidden behind gently drifting clouds, promised eternity. Andrei Bolkonsky was going to die, and he made peace with it as he stared up at that infinite firmament.

Sure, he regretted not living a better life.

Sure, he felt pangs for his wife, for his unborn child, for his beloved sister, and father.

He wished he could stay.

He’d do it all differently.

But in that moment, that brief fraction of forever, he saw nothing but the gray canvas stretched above him, where white clouds raced each other in every conceivable direction. He saw death coming for him just as he finally realized what it meant to be _alive_. 

Granted, he was surprised to find that death looked a lot like a hussar in a tattered uniform.

A pale creature with crimson eyes and an angelic face bent over him, threadbare pants sinking into the dirt. He _was_ wearing a hussar’s uniform, but somehow, Andrei doubted that the individual kneeling before him could be anything as common. He looked like Apollo, like Poseidon, like Zeus.

The not-hussar, the probable god, peered at him thoughtfully, brilliant eyes indolently slinking over his head wound to his face to his arms that were shivering violently by his sides. 

He smiled reassuringly, all blindingly white teeth, and murmured something about not being afraid.

Something red dripped in a thin line from his bared lips.

And the creature raptured him away to some abandoned shack in the middle of the woods, far away from the battle, far away from the Austerlitz sky and all of its lofty promises. He laid him out on the floor, and through the milky film growing over his eyes, Andrei could make out dark rafters crisscrossing each other like crucifixes. He thought briefly of the icon around his neck, and his sister’s luminous eyes danced across his fading vision.

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured again. His voice was smooth, like honey dripping from a comb.

And then the creature, the _monster_ , sunk his teeth into Andrei’s arm, his leg, his neck, and in the act of saving him, condemned him to a fate worse than death.

He screamed for three days.

That was one sky.

Hers is another.

The last note of the song fizzles in the air, long and solemn, a silky ribbon streaming gracefully from the air to the floor, revolving delicately in slow motion. It thrums through his entire body, echoing around his dead veins like little electric pulses. He wishes he could grab a hold of it—the sound and the sensation are one in the same—and clutch it tight to his chest; maybe he could even thread it into the cavity where his heart used to be.

The girl on stage takes her bow amidst raucous applause, drunken applause; she doesn’t deserve so crude of a compliment.

Her cheeks glow red with embarrassment.

A trembling hand still rests on her stomach.

And she hops off stage, heads in the direction of the bathroom, long braid swishing like a pendulum down her back.

And here’s the kicker: she doesn’t go alone.

—

The bathroom door opens as soon as she shuts it, and standing in front of her, hands tucked in his pockets, a leer carved into his pale lips, is a statue of a feral god. He has vine leaves in his hair, and his clothes could use a wash, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s beautiful.

Divine.

His olive skin is almost luminous.

His lush hair and beard could be subtle gradations of a midnight.

Sinewy muscles ripple under his shirt, corded tight, a promise of threat.

Dangerous.

The most venomous creatures in the world are often the prettiest, too.

Natasha doesn’t like the color of his eyes; they’re black, glittering like beetles, but the light is doing something to them, she thinks. 

She hopes.

Her heart throws itself against her ribcage over and over and over again.

In the light, the white, flickering light of the dingy bathroom in El Sol’s, his eyes are tinged _red_.

She opens her mouth to scream, only to find that the feral god’s hand is already at her lips, trapping her voice inside his achingly cold palm.

She hadn’t even seen him move.

“Shh, now,” he whispers, and he’s playful, charming, “please don’t do that. Let’s just keep this between you and me, _love_. Our little secret.”

His voice is full of smooth pebbles. Gravelly. Intoxicating.

And the way he smells.

Sweeter and richer than any perfume she has ever known.

“You have a very nice voice, you know,” he says earnestly. Almost. The teasing glint in his red eyes betrays him, makes his _foreplay_ all the more cruel. Hot tears leak down Natasha’s cheeks, spilling onto the hand outstretched over her mouth. “I thought about sparing you, taking one of your friends instead… but, and I hope you take this as the compliment that it is, your blood is remarkably sweeter than theirs. Untouched by booze. _Untainted_.”

The word unfurls like a joke.

And he laughs.

Loudly.

Jubilantly.

And Natasha realizes that Dionysus is going to be drinking something a little more headier than wine tonight.

She thrashes against him with all of her might, kicking and clawing and screaming against the hand on her mouth, but he remains unfazed, inflexible. Her nails rake his hard skin, and she is the one who comes away scuffed up.

He merely laughs some more, holds her as gently as he would a doll, and lowers his mouth to her bare neck.

The door opens and closes.

The god’s lips are frozen against her jugular.

Andrei Bolkonsky, cold fury etched into line upon line of his face, stands in the doorway.

“If you so much as nick her skin, I’ll end you.”

—

The idiot.

The moron.

The lowlife.

The _bastard_.

How could he have ever thought that killing a girl in the bathroom of a public restaurant was a _good_ idea?

Dolokhov releases the girl instantly, hands held up in the air in surrender; an arch smile swerves across his lips, his crimson eyes. The girl falls to the floor, palms gritted against the dirty tiles, her entire body retching. There are scratches on her hands, earthquakes in her fingers. The peaks of her spine curl sharply beneath her shirt.

It’s a pitiable sight, but Andrei doesn’t dare to take his eyes off Dolokhov for any longer than a second.

“Ah, Andrei, my old _pal_ , it’s been decades.” His surrendering palms become open ones, as though he is inviting an embrace.

As if Andrei is stupid enough to touch him.

“Pleasantness isn’t a good look on you, Dolokhov,” he replies coldly, gesturing to the girl on the floor, “not after you’ve just been caught trying to murder a human, a _child_ , in a godforsaken _public bathroom_. Have you lost your mind?”

“A little,” he grins, unperturbed. His black eyes gleam in the slimy light pouring from the overheads; hunger is carved tight into the angular lines of his face. (Dolokhov is always hungry. A glut.) “I came in from the South, didn’t have time to hit up Manhattan for my usual fare.”

“Manhattan is barely thirty minutes from here.”

“I was anxious to see Hélène.”

“You know you’re not supposed to hunt here.”

“And I would have respected that lame _edict_ had I not caught a whiff of this pretty little thing’s scent.” He points carelessly in her direction, and Andrei chances a glance at the girl on the floor, the girl from the stage, the girl—he realizes with a jolt—from the bar a couple of weeks ago. The moment he had walked into the Den, he had been overwhelmed with the newness of her blood. It caught him off guard, confused him for more fractions of seconds than he would like to admit. He had long been desensitized to all of the humans around him because he had known them, _lived_ amongst them.

Not her, though.

She unbalanced him.

Just enough to make him notice.

“You have to admit, Andy B, there is something in her vitals that is absolutely… irresistible. Fresh. Young.”

“That’s still no excuse,” he growls, all frustration, attention torn between Dolokhov and the girl now. She had recoiled at the vampire’s words, a tiny groan issuing through her teeth; it’s enough for Andrei to instantly understand that she knows the _exact_ nature of the death that had awaited her mere minutes ago. “You want to come through here and screw around with Hélène? Fine. Be my guest. But killing people is out of the question, especially if you’re enough of a halfwit to try and get away with it in a restaurant full of people.”

“I would have gotten away with it,” Dolokhov says quickly, calmly. Something like steel has slid into his eyes. 

That’s his takeaway.

That he could have beaten any human who came for him.

Andrei snarls in disgust, fists clenching by his sides.

“Just get out of here, Dolokhov,” he bites out, “before I change my mind and send you straight to hell anyway.”

Light switch on. Light switch off. The rogue assumes his pleasant demeanor again; a lazy smile winds its way onto his lips.

“Your wish is my command,” he murmurs obsequiously, passing him in a few agile steps. Their shoulders align for the briefest eighth of a second, and Andrei feels a sharp pain shoot through it. It takes all of his self-restraint not to cringe, not to give Dolokhov the satisfaction of seeing him cringe. “If you need me, I’ll be making a cuckhold out of Pierre. Tell him that for me, will you? When you go to him and present him the _one_ sheep you saved when I’ve killed thousands? Tell him that.”

And he looks over his shoulder at the girl on the floor, a lion appreciating his prey.

And he shakes his head remorsefully.

As though it is a pity that her blood isn’t swirling around his eyes.

(He isn’t wrong. She is dreadfully appealing. Young. Fresh.)

The door opens and closes.


End file.
